World’s Largest Gold Deposits

Below are some interesting graphs courtesy of minefund.com. I have talked before about what to look for when you are researching gold companies to invest in. Grade of the gold, amount of gold reserves and resources, location etc. Although the deposits listed are already well known, at least you can look at the differences between the sizes of the deposits and the grade of the ore. As a side note, I’m not sure how accurate these figures are, so I wouldn’t use these without doing some more research.

This first graph is listed according to the amount of proven and probable reserves. Notice how Donlin Creek(50% NovaGold and 50% Barrick) and KSM(Seabridge Gold) is near the top of the list. Also notice the difference in grade. KSM does have some by-product production though, which Donlin Creek doesn’t have. I still feel Donlin is the more valuable asset. Pueblo Viejo is a joint venture between Barrick and Goldcorp. 24 million ounces at 3 g/t, it’s going to be a great mine once it’s in production.

The next graph list the top mines according to the grade of the gold. This isn’t about the size of the deposit, as several listed are under 1 million ounces. Grade of the gold is one of the first things I look at. Like I said before, for open pit mines anything above 2 g/t is good, underground you need about 5-10 g/t. That is assuming there is no by-product production.

And finally we have a list according to the In-Situ Value. I notice a few errors on here so don’t rely too heavily on this. It’s interesting though anyway.